February 21, 2006

Molly Ivins' partisan streak ends

Dreams really do come true. After analyzing 270 achingly predictable Molly Ivins columns over the past three years here at Lying in Ponds, I was shocked last week when it finally happened. Number 271, entitled “Not. Backing. Hillary.“, was her first “crossover column”, defined here as a substantive column (at least five positive or negative partisan references) in which the number of references favorable to the other party or unfavorable to one’s own party exceed those going in the usual direction. Ms. Ivins made 13 Republican-leaning references by seriously ripping Hillary Clinton and other Democrats she derided as “pragmatic folk”. Molly being Molly, she may not be capable of writing a simple column criticizing her own party — she also generated 12 Democratic-leaning references by praising Eugene McCarthy and other Democrats and criticizing the usual Republican suspects.